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Nineteenth of April. 



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ADDRESS 



OLD CONCORD MEETING HOUSE 



APRIL 19, 1894 



BY 

E. R. HOAR 



BEACON PRESS: 

THOMAS TODD, PRINTER, 7-A BEACON STREET, BOSTON 

1S94 



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Mr. President, Your Excellency, Your Honor, 
Fellow Citizens : 

It has been my privilege, through a long 
life now nearing its close, to participate in all 
the public celebrations of this historic day by 
the people of Concord ; and its memories are 
very dear to my heart. 

The first was in 1825, almost seventy years 
ago, when as a schoolboy, upon this spot, I lis- 
tened to the first great historical oration, and 
perhaps the best, — pronounced by that master 
of history and oratory, Edward Everett. 

The second, at which I had the honor to 
preside, was the seventy-fifth anniversary in 1850, 
when Lexington, Acton, and other towns whose 
citizens had a special interest in the day, united 
with Concord to celebrate it. The Governor 
and Council and the General Court, with the 
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company as 
escort, testified by their presence the significance 
of the occasion. 

At the centennial in 1875, we had as guests 
the President of the United States and his Cab- 
inet, the Governors of all the New England 



States, each escorted by his chosen military com- 
pany, and many of the most distinguished men 
in civil and military life of the whole country. 
We had 60,000 people in attendance in Con- 
cord, all we could attend to ; and Lexington had 
another magnificent celebration, perhaps with 
even a more numerous crowd. 

I mention these occasions, to which perhaps 
should be added a mention of the Lexington 
celebration of 1835, and one or two in Acton 
worthy of the day, at which I have been pres- 
ent, in order to ask your attention to the steadi- 
ness with which interest in the 19th of April, 
local, state, and national, has grown and in- 
creased, as we consider its far-reaching relations 
and consequences. 

And yet another thought connected with its 
observance presents itself, as we meet today to 
commemorate the 19th of April, by the act of 
the General Court of which your Excellency's 
proclamation has given notice, which makes the 
day a Massachusetts holiday. It is indeed, and 
should be forever, the Massachusetts holiday. 

Your Excellency has fitly called it "Patriots' 
Day," and so it is ; but it has no exclusive title 
to that appellation. The 17th of June is a Pa- 
triots' Day, and the Connecticut General Put- 
nam commanded in part; it was a Patriots' Day 
that saw Washington take command of the 



5 

American Army at Cambridge ; Bennington and 
Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown, each furnished 
a day for patriotic memory and patriotic thanks- 
giving. But. in each Massachusetts participated 
with others in the triumph and the glory. The 
4th of July is eminently " Patriots' Day " for all 
American citizens. But this day, the 19th of 
April, 1775, has a relation to Massachusetts more 
intimate and sacred than any other day can 
have ; a day on whose anniversary it has been 
well to provide by law that her children should 
keep holiday ; our mother's birthday ; for on this 
day, 1 1 9 years ago, the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chtisetts was born ! 

Think of it ! Plymouth and the Massachu- 
setts were English Colonies. The province of 
Massachusetts Bay was a British province. In 
the French and Indian Wars our fathers, sub- 
jects of the English King, served under officers 
commissioned by the Royal Governor. All writs 
ran in the King's name. On the house where 
the Assembly of the province met, the Royal 
Arms were emblazoned (they are there to this 
day, like cannon captured in battle, telling their 
story of our victory !) and the Royal flag waved 
over it. The first and second Congresses, who 
were gathered here to devise measures for the 
defense of liberty in Massachusetts, when this 
roof-tree echoed the voices of Warren and Han- 



cock and Samuel Adams, were Provincial Con- 
gresses. 

It was on such a community that the sun 
rose on the 19th of April, 1775. With it rose 
the Provincials, and the records of that day's 
deeds tell of the doings of the Provincials and 
the Regulars. That suh at its setting saw the 
British Army driven as a foreign enemy in dis- 
astrous rout to take shelter under the guns of 
its men of war in besieged Boston ; and from 
that beleaguered camp and the help those guns 
afforded it never departed till Washington drove 
fleet and army away together in the following 
March. (Bunker Hill was but a resistance to 
an American advance which would have made 
Boston untenable.) 

From that day to this no foreign power has 
ever held other possession in Massachusetts, nor 
has any control been exercised within her bor- 
ders except that of her own people, original or 
delegated. Capt. Isaac Davis had said on leav- 
ing his home in Acton in the morning, " I have 
a right to go to Concord on the King's high- 
way ; and I will go to Concord ; " but it was no 
longer a Kings highway over which his body 
was carried home in the afternoon. The Royal 
Governor was wiped out; and martial law, which 
had practically prevailed, was formally declared 
within the British lines ; and no civil authority 



but that conferred by the citizens of Massachu- 
setts has ever since been exercised within her 
limits. 

A few years ago a bright young townsman 
of mine, of Irish descent, was an applicant for 
an appointment under the Government of the 
United States, and reported for examination be- 
fore the Civil Service Commission. Among the 
questions asked him was this : " In what year 
did the United States become independent.?" and 
he answered, "In 1775." The chairman of the 
examining board, whose fine culture was not de- 
void of humor, made merely this kindly com- 
ment : " Well, as you are from Concord, perhaps 
you have a right to think so." 

The independence of Massachusetts was 
practically achieved on the 19th of April, 1775, 
though it waited to be declared, with that of her 
sister States, on the 4th of July, 1776. 

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was 
born that day — the Commonwealth of our affec- 
tion and our pride, ever increasing as the years 
of her illustrious history roll on. Long had 
been the preparation for her coming, and pain- 
ful were the throes of the mighty delivery. She 
came to us, in maturity of strength and beauty, 
like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, and also 
like that fabled goddess, she came with the clash 
of arms. Her hand, ever hostile to tyranny, then 



8 

grasped the sword by which, as is seen in her 

crest and motto, she ever seeks peace under 

liberty : 

Hasc Manus, inimica tyrannis, 

Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem. 

It was the vision of the soon-coming Common- 
wealth that fired the prophetic soul of Adams 
in his immortal utterance, " O, what an ever 
glorious morning is this ! " ; and I cannot but 
think that some glimpse of that beautiful and ma- 
jestic presence must have illumined and cheered 
the dying eyes of the martyrs of Lexington, and 
of those who fell in the long and bloody conflict 
which began at Concord Bridge and ended at 
Charlestown Neck. 

They saw her, plumed and mailed, 

With sweet, stern face unveiled, 

And all repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. 

It is our Mother's birthday, and we desire 
to thank your Excellency, the honored and wor- 
thy Representative of the Commonwealth, for your 
presence with us today. 

And is not this occasion, when for the first 
time we meet to celebrate the 19th of April with 
a full public recognition of its relation to the 
Commonwealth, the time to end forever all local 
bickerings and petty jealousies about the share 
that one or another town or village or hamlet 



had in the events which have given the day its 
imperishable glory ? 

Whatever was done Massachusetts did it. 
No citizen of another province or colony took 
any part, though General Putnam reached Con- 
cord from his Connecticut home seventy miles 
off on the following day. But throughout Mas- 
sachusetts the decisive day was known to be at 
hand, and the people were ready for it, with high 
resolve and stern determination. Western Mas- 
sachusetts, not long before, on a false alarm 
had sent her militia and minutemen as far as 
Worcester on the road to Boston, when they 
learned that their movement was premature, and 
turned back. It was General Gage who deter- 
mined at what time and place the collision 
should occur. The Provincial Congress had its 
deposit of military stores at Worcester as well 
as Concord ; and if Gage had chosen to strike 
his blow in that direction, Watertown or Fram- 
ingham might have been the Lexington, and 
Worcester the Concord, of the Revolution. The 
clouds of war were rolling up all round the 
horizon, and it was where hostile British bay- 
onets and musket barrels should present them- 
selves that decided where the thunderbolt should 
strike. 

Lexington has the undying glory that it 
was her sons who were privileged to be the first 



10 

to give their lives for their country on the day 
we commemorate. 

Concord remembers with satisfaction that it 
was at her old North Bridge, and by one of her 
sons, that the first order by an officer in com- 
mand to the soldiers of the people to fire upon 
the troops of the king was given and obeyed. 

Acton has its precious memory of its heroic 
Captain Davis who fell in front, and had not a 
man who was afraid to go. 

Cambridge, and Arlington, and Danvers, and 
Woburn, and Lincoln, and Bedford, and Water- 
town, and Roxbury, and Groton, and Westford, 
and other towns, have graves and traditions 
which they keep with tender reverence. 

But the transcendent fact remains. It was 
Massachusetts up in arms that day. No officer 
of hers "had a man that was afraid to go." No 
military organization, which had notice, failed to 
rush to the scene of action as speedily as time 
and distance would permit; and every man did 
what he could. Boston was in the iron grasp 
of General Gage's army; but Boston, which had 
furnished so much of the wise counsel and res- 
olute will which sustained the defense of liberty, 
lighted the lanterns in the North Church stee- 
pie, and Joseph Warren sent Revere and Dorr 
to alarm the country. The soldiers from the 
towns who did not get notice in season, and 



II 



could not join in the pursuit of the British 
troops from Concord, were found on the next 
days a part of the besieging army that kept them 
where they had been driven. It was not for 
themselves, or for their towns only, but for Mas- 
sachusetts and liberty that the men of 1775 
risked life and so much that makes life dear. 
The memory of each is a precious possession 
to us all. Let us, when sounding their praise, 
join in harmonious voices. 

And now I cannot forbear to ask our es- 
teemed and patriotic friends, the Sons of the 
American Revolution, whose presence with us 
today we value so highly, to consider, at least by 
way of modest suggestion, whether the restriction 
of their membership to the lineal bodily descend- 
ants of participants in the Revolutionary struggle 
is, on the whole, wise or desirable, or had better 
be changed. The title to public consideration or 
leadership in public affairs by reason of descent 
is not an American idea. Every citizen of the 
Commonwealth, of whatever parentage, and wher- 
ever born, should feel her inspiration, and be a 
guardian of her fame. The Scripture tells us 
that none are Abraham's seed but those who do 
the works of Abraham. Mr. Emerson told Kos- 
suth, when he came to Concord, that the dust of 
our heroes beneath the sod recognized his as a 
footstep kindred to their own. 



12 



The shot fired at the North Bridge was 
heard round the world. 

Your Excellency's predecessor in 1850 said 
as truly as finely : " Not a blow struck for liberty 
among men since the 19th of April, 1775, but 
has echoed the guns of that eventful morning." 

The great apostle has left us his testimony: 
" For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
they are the sons of God." 

Washington left no posterity, but every true 
American calls him father. 

And so I would urge that on this memo- 
rable day, concerned with memories and events 
which should be dear to us all, every citizen of 
the Commonwealth who prefers honor and pub- 
lic service to selfishness and ease, who loves lib- 
erty, and will resist tyranny without counting the 
personal cost, wherever he was born and of what- 
ever lineage after the flesh, that every true son 
of Massachusetts should have a right to call 
himself, and is, 

A Son of the American Revolution. 






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